1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flexible natural wood sheet having outstanding softness and folding endurance, which is suitable for use as a material for small articles, such as a bag or a pouch.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in order to process natural wood in a sheet and to use the sheet to fabricate small articles, such as a bag, a handbag, a wallet, a coin purse, a book cover, a cover sheet, a belt or a pouch, it is necessary to use the natural wood as a soft thin plate. However, when wood, which is a naturally-occurring polymer, is dried, the wood is transformed into a glassy polymer which is brittle and prone to fracture. Thus, a thin plate material is more frequently cracked or broken by bending, contact or other forces. Accordingly, in order to use a thin natural wood plate material, a flexible film made of polyvinyl chloride or other suitable material has been coated on either or both of the surfaces of the thin plate material, or a reinforcing material has been used such that the thin plate material is not cracked or broken even if a brittle fracture occurs.
If a flexible film is attached to a thin natural wood plate material, the flexible film is used to form a laminate structure, or a thin natural wood plate material is coated as described above, the surface of the thin natural wood plate material is covered with a synthetic resin contained in the film or the coating agent. Therefore, the texture and feel inherent to natural wood are lost.
Moreover, although the use of a reinforcing material such as a flexible film improves the folding endurance of the reinforcing material, it does not improve the folding endurance of a thin natural wood plate material.
On the other hand, if a thin natural wood plate material is used for a small article such as a bag or a pouch by utilizing the texture inherent to natural wood, wood including a naturally-occurring polymer is transformed into a glassy polymer in which brittle fractures are likely to occur when it is dried. Therefore, since the thin plate material is often cracked or broken by bending, contact or other forces applied thereto, the thin plate material is difficult to handle. Accordingly, a thin natural wood plate material itself cannot be used without being cracked or broken.
More specifically, there is no thin natural wood plate material having outstanding folding endurance.
Thus, through research, the inventors of the present invention achieved the present invention in consideration of the following facts: wood, which is not cut, has softness and cells of the wood are filled with water, dried wood is used as raw wood processed into a thin plate, and therefore, cells or intercellular spaces of the dried wood are cavities which lack water, other cavities such as vessels or sieve tubes are present in the wood, and lignin in the wood solidifies cellulose in the wood as a paste-like substance as the wood is dried.